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Was there till about 8.30 then had to go to another meeting. Good spirits I thought, and people really engaged and listening to what was being said inside – Choice Ireland handing out sandwiches was a nice and thoughtful touch. Clare Daly must have her head quite turned with all her new admirers in SF and the Labour Party. It’s a feature of Irish political life through the years that people always ‘really admire’ principled individuals on the left…..

Sorry, just to correct that first part, there are of course four Labour TDs without the whip. They voted as follows:

Yes: Broughan, Nulty.
No: Shortall
Abstention/Absent: Penrose

There were no rebel votes by anybody. All ULA TDs were present and voted Yes. All SF TDs were present bar Toibin, and those present voted Yes. Quite a few Labour/FF/FG TDs didn’t show up, but none broke the whip.

Joe Costello in a tweet to a family member just now said he was in Limerick on ministerial business and was paired – presumably by an FFer – as were others. He hasn’t responded to her suggestion that, had he been there, he would of course have voted ‘Ta’ in accordance with LP policy….

It’s the way they think – people in Cavan are ‘Sean Quinn’s people’ those in Thurles are ‘Lowry’s people’ and so on. The one thing they’ve never encountered is ‘the people’.That’s the kind of small brained dinosaurs we’re dealing with.

I arrived at about 8.00. There was a good crowd, though smaller than last week’s. It was also quite a bit colder. Most stayed until 10.00 to deny TDs who’d voted Níl the choice of leaving the Dáil. There was a call-out to sit down on the street but thankfully it went unheeded and people crowded up to the gates. There were riot cops hanging around in the background but it wasn’t the sort of crowd you’d baton charge and they relaxed when it was announced we were all going home at 10.00. It was particularly heartening though to see Eric Byrne being heckled for quite a while as he emerged from the building, into which indeed he was forced to return – there was a good crowd there from Dublin SC… It’ll be interesting to see how Byrne and Connaghton (his LP partner) will do next time ’round. The ‘silent socialists’ of DSC don’t answer emails but hey, we’ll run off another one in the morning for what it’s worth. Shame indeed.

I didn’t get the sense that the crowd was significantly smaller than last week’s – it was certainly still quite impressive considering it was the fourth protest in three weeks (and the bitter cold). The numbers who stuck under til the end were also impressive. In all the years I worked in the Dáil I never once had to fight my way through a crowd outside the gate after a Private Members’ debate – that won’t have failed to make an impression.

Could I make a plug here for the National Day of Action in Galway on Saturday. Choice Ireland is subsidising a bus to it for €5 per person (leaving Parnell Square after 10.30 and returning at 8) – spaces can be reserved by emailing choiceireland at gmail dot com.

[…] more muted and less effective and that the focus on the legislature would be less clear. Moreover as noted in comments the presence of significant crowds outside the Dáil will not have gone unnoticed. But what’s […]